Search Results for: IN HER OWN WORDS

Kid Rock has been sentenced to a year’s probation and fined $1,000 for his role in a fight at a suburban Atlanta Waffle House last fall. The DeKalb County solicitor’s office said the 37-year-old was also sentenced Monday to six hours of anger management counseling and 80 hours of community service. The entertainer, whose real name is Robert J. Ritchie, pleaded no contest to one count of simple battery. Four counts of battery were dropped. Ritchie’s tour bus stopped at the Waffle House about 5 a.m. on Oct. 21 after a performance in downtown Atlanta. An exchange of words with… Read more »

Among the most notorious on-screen gaffes ever, Janet Jackson’s breast-baring “wardrobe malfunction” on CBS during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show drew a $550,000 indecency fine from the Federal Communications Commission. Now a federal appeals court has thrown it out. A panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the FCC “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in issuing the fine for the fleeting image of nudity, which it noted lasted just over half a second. An estimated 90 million people watching the Super Bowl heard Justin Timberlake sing, “Gonna have you naked by the end of this… Read more »

When the culture began to change in the late 1960s – when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the War in Vietnam – George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it’s hard to think of Carlin as one of America’s most radical and courageous popular artists. But he was. Carlin started doing stand-up… Read more »

When Hartmut Ostrowski was an up-and-comer in Bertelsmann’s printing and services division in the 1990s, his bosses were discouraged from speaking at meetings of the top executives. In the glamorous world of Bertelsmann, a global media empire with music, television, and publishing properties – Germany’s answer to Time Warner – services were viewed as strictly a backstage function. Now, with Mr. Ostrowski at the helm of Bertelsmann, the stagehands are striding into the spotlight. Two weeks ago, he named Markus Dohle, a 39-year-old German who runs the company’s printing operations, as chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest consumer… Read more »

At first it seemed like overkill, being able to download American Idol performances from iTunes the day after they aired. Until we realized we could pay 99 cents and listen to David Cook’s version of “Hello” as many times as we wanted! And thousands of people are clamoring for more, giving the newly crowned Idol winner four out of the five top spots on iTunes’ list of Top Songs. His victory anthem, the songwriting-contest winner “The Time of My Life,” is perched loftily at No. 1. The other big digital hits for Cook at the moment (literally, at this moment)… Read more »

Pink’s marriage was apparently not a feel-good time. The pop-punk princess and her husband of just two years, the motocross-racing, Surreal Life-starring Carey Hart, have separated. And by the sounds of things, rather amicably. “This decision was made by best friends with a huge amount of love and respect for one another,” said the singer’s publicist, Michele Schweitzer. “While the marriage is over, their friendship has never been stronger.” Indeed, in a post on her official site (pinkspage.com), Pink blames dueling careers for torpedoing the union. “The most important thing for you all to know, is that Carey and I… Read more »

They have lyrics such as “Tequila makes her clothes fall off” and “Breakin down the good weed, rollin’ the blunt/Ghetto pimp tight girls say I’m the man.” U.S. popular music is awash with lyrics about drugs, alcohol and tobacco. Medical researchers have reviewed the words of the 279 top songs of 2005 to estimate just how common they are. Their report on Monday showed a third of the songs had explicit references to substance abuse. And two-thirds of these references placed drugs, alcohol and tobacco in a positive light by associating them with sex, partying and humor, according to the… Read more »

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ surprisingly subdued Super Bowl halftime show was as uncomplicated in person as it looked on television. There were no wardrobe – or any other kind – of malfunctions. Moments before the performance, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers calmly waited on the Patriots’ side of the field. Once given the go signal, the musicians quickly took the stage, picked up their instruments and started performing. They made playing a concert for about 100 million people look almost effortless. On the field, it was impossible to tell that the illuminated stage was heart shaped or that a… Read more »

The latest in a series of doors being auctioned off from a house where Jim Morrison once lived has been painted with a “Love Her Madly” theme. “The Jim Morrison Home Legacy Series” enlists artists to use doors collected from a Clearwater, Fla., home that belonged to Morrison’s grandparents as their canvases. The doors are then donated to various causes. The latest, taken from the master bathroom, will go up for auction on eBay Saturday after being unveiled during a Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra concert dedicated to the band’s music. Proceeds will benefit the orchestra and an anti-gang initiative. Painted by… Read more »

Scores of workers from MTV Networks walked off the job yesterday afternoon, filling the sidewalk outside the headquarters of its corporate parent, Viacom, to protest recent changes in benefits. The walkout highlighted the concerns of a category of workers who are sometimes called permalancers: permanent freelancers who work like full-time employees but do not receive the same benefits. Waving signs that read “Shame on Viacom,” the workers, most of them in their 20s, demanded that MTV Networks reverse a plan to reduce health and dental benefits for freelancers beginning Jan. 1. In a statement, MTV Networks noted that its benefits… Read more »